A rock and a very hard place

Three weeks ago today, Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis appealed to Bahamians to sacrifice three more weeks “for a lifetime of success”.

“…I am just asking, Mr. Speaker, that [the] Bahamian populace just make three weeks of sacrifice by utilizing the masks and I know it’s uncomfortable and discomforting for some, but what is three weeks of discomfort for a lifetime of success, both economic and for the future of this country?” Minnis asked as he tabled a resolution to extend his emergency powers to October 31.

At the time he made his appeal, The Bahamas had recorded a total of 3,087 cases of COVID-19. New Providence had recorded a total of 2,107 cases.

Three weeks on, our crisis has only deepened.

The country’s total case count is now at 4,559. New Providence has recorded a total of 3,396 cases — that’s an additional 1,289 cases.

Two weeks ago, Minnis declared The Bahamas appeared to be nearing the end of the second wave of COVID-19 infections, even as 435 new cases were confirmed in the country the previous week. Hours after he spoke, 151 new cases were reported.

While we appreciated the prime minister’s appeal on September 16 for Bahamians to follow health protocols and to take the pandemic seriously, his statement that a period of sacrifice was necessary for just three more weeks was clearly unrealistic when he uttered it.

Perhaps his thinking was such a comment would help make the resolution to extend the state of emergency yet again more palatable.

There is nothing that was presented at the time that gave any comfort that we were on our way out of the woods. There has been nothing since then that suggested this either.

We are today at the worst point we have been at during this whole pandemic experience. Hope is fast fading that we will see the other side of this anytime soon.

Grim, but true.

On Monday, COVID-19 deaths reached a grisly milestone, hitting 100. There were another 13 deaths under investigation.

While some people continue to carry on as if life is back to normal, truth is, we are far from normal and the action of behaving as if we are is fueling a vicious spread of the novel coronavirus on New Providence nearly seven months after the first case was reported here.

Minnis accurately observed in a national address on Sunday, “The world is tired of this pandemic. I know that you are sick and tired of COVID-19 … COVID-19 is exhausting our patience and continues to cause massive and unprecedented disruption.”

The prime minister noted we are now seeing an average of one death a day and one in every 100 residents of New Providence is now infected with COVID-19.

The prime minister also advised in that national address that he met with Pan-American Health Organization and World Health Organization representative to The Bahamas Dr. Esther de Gourville and government health consultant Dr. Merceline Dahl-Regis.

He said they discussed the current status of COVID-19 in The Bahamas, particularly New Providence, and possible strategies for the way forward.

Dr. de Gourville was due to meet with business representatives, and was scheduled to brief Cabinet yesterday in the presence of the leader of the opposition and his team. The opposition was a no show.

In what many people saw as a signal that he will again resort to dreaded lockdowns, the prime minister said that after the meetings, he will brief the nation on recommendations of health experts, especially on the way forward for New Providence and Abaco.

The prime minister is scheduled to address the House of Assembly today.

What can we expect?

With three and a half weeks left before the state of emergency expires, Minnis, the competent authority in law, is stuck between the proverbial rock and a very hard place. He must balance the health, economic and social needs of the country in deciding how to move us forward

We can bet that Minnis will not do what he did on August 17, which is to announce a no notice, seven-day immediate lockdown of New Providence, advising that the lockdown would be a period of “sacrifice and hardship” to get COVID-19 under control.

Amid scathing backlash, he abandoned that decision in under 24 hours.

Since then, and even as cases continued to rise, the prime minister appeared to throw his hands up and opened most sectors of the economy.

Many people on social media posted a chilling line in response: “May the best immune system win.”

On September 10, Minnis told reporters he does not foresee any more lockdowns to fight COVID-19, but instead expects to isolate areas of the country where there are high cases.

He spoke of the possibility of isolating so-called hotspots on New Providence, but that does not seem like a realistic proposition. 

A week later, he announced the relaxing of even more restrictions.

The case count continued to climb.

It is clear that some action needs to be taken. We cannot go on like this without restrictive measures in a bid to curtail the galloping coronavirus.

In deciding whether to resort to lockdowns, the prime minister has taken or will no doubt take several critical factors under consideration: community spread, the strain on businesses, high unemployment and the psychological and social impacts lockdowns have had already.

The dilemma is worsened by the fact that The Bahamas has once again announced to the world that it is open for business and expects a ramping up of its tourism product come November 1.

Minister of Tourism Dionisio D’Aguilar previously announced that October 15 was the targeted date for hotels to resume full operations and for beaches to be fully open, although major hotels have not yet set reopening dates.

The economy cannot work without a healthy population, but Minnis might not be prepared for the intense pushback that might come from certain quarters if he reverts to lockdowns.

He might try a two-week lockdown that would come ahead of the so-called tourism reopening and would be within the timeframe of the existing state of emergency. That is at least a window in which he could try to slow the spread of the virus. 

We have been under a state of emergency now since March 18. 

The constitution provides for extensions of up to six months. Had the government not allowed the initial state of emergency to run out without bringing a resolution to the House to extend it, the period would have expired last month.

The competent authority, if he so chooses, could get additional extensions up until the end of the year, but we doubt Minnis will take us into the holidays still under a state of emergency.

We think the prime minister recognizes that for many Bahamians, extending his emergency powers beyond month’s end would be a nonstarter.

There is widespread pandemic fatigue and many who initially supported his actions grew to see them as an abuse of power, given that they were not evenly applied in many respects, and in some cases made no sense.

Getting buy-in would be difficult.

This would not be unique to The Bahamas.

In a recent opinion piece in The New York Times, titled “Lockdown Feels Pretty Different the Second Time Around”, Ruth Margalit observed: “Whatever trust Israelis had had in the government to lead us through the pandemic has evaporated. The sense of national solidarity — the kind of wartime singleness of purpose that characterized the first lockdown — has been replaced by what can only be described as a free-for-all.”

Israel may be the first country to go through two national pandemic-related lockdowns, Margalit wrote, but, sadly, it won’t be the last.

“To the people living elsewhere who are about to experience a similar ordeal, I offer my condolences and a single thought: if you’re going to do it, do it right,” she added.

“Doing it right”, whether it be lockdown or any other measure, requires collective responsibility on the part of citizens.

As we observed in our editorial yesterday, individual action is not enough to stop COVID-19 unless enough individuals are taking action and behaving in a responsible fashion.

An individual can be as careful, as paranoid and as conservative as possible about his or her own health, but irresponsible action on the part of another person could place many people at risk.

A toxic combination in our fight against this brutal pandemic has been bad policies and a failure of sufficient numbers of Bahamians to accept that they are personally accountable in this fight and to behave accordingly.

It will take sound policies and responsible citizens to end this nightmare — both at the moment are sadly in short supply.

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